


an answer to be heard

by qanterqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Dr Who AU, Fluff and Angst, i accidentally put all of em as a relationship and i will amend that its not a big like poly thing, i dunno guys its all here ykno, its just that everyone shows up, its like loosely based off of dr who tbh, the whole gangs gonna show up its gonna be a Great Time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 12:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14332674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qanterqueen/pseuds/qanterqueen
Summary: It was them against the world, always and forever. Through the regenerations, through the hesitant nights, holding back from whispering dangerous ideas, they stayed together.Them against the world.Until the day came that there was no world to be against.





	an answer to be heard

It's always been the two of them against the world.

Despite it all, they had each other. Despite the scrutiny of others, the scorn cast upon their bad decisions and irrational, impulsive behaviors, things were always okay. Because they had each other-- they had the knowledge of someone else having confidence in them, they had another pair of hands on the keyboard, they had someone else to laugh at their jokes and encourage the risk of a free life.

It was them against the world, always and forever. Through the regenerations, through the hesitant nights, holding back from whispering dangerous ideas, they stayed together.

Them against the world.

Until the day came that there was no world to be against.

It would be ridiculous to say  _ it _ came out of the blue, with no warning and no precursor. There had been threats and warnings telegraphed through holograms for months. Councils had met and discussed what had to be done. News of a possible attack had been broadcasted just a week before, and everyone had cleared the shelves of the markets in a panic. They believed it would help them.

Hardly anyone had been out and about. Shelters were being made and sought out. Entire towns and cities had been evacuated to registered safe zones. Goodbyes had been said by everyone as they were forced to separate to different shelters-- some tearful, some full of nervous laughter.

It was, to some, not a  _ goodbye. _ It was a  _ see you again _ . It was a laugh and a scoff and a proclamation that the whole thing was ridiculous, and they would be back in time for supper.

Lup and Taako did not say any goodbyes. There was no one to say goodbye to.

They didn't have a single clue about the danger, either.

Unable to sit still and itching for adventure, only a week ago they had departed from their planet. The danger had only been a passing gossip-- and who did they have to gossip with? Where would they learn of such danger?

They departed with no goodbyes and the expectation to return within a month. 

On their way out of the atmosphere they did not spare a second glance at their planet.

Two months later, their ship carried them to the coordinates they told it to arrive at-- the coordinates for a dock that was no longer there, to a sea that was dried to a desert, to a whole world that was simply gone.

There was no place to land. No place to even observe. No wreckage to salvage through, no bodies to search, no destruction to see-- there was just a void and another space where a star could live.

The twins left without a word to each other. 

They never called that place home-- their ship was their home and it always had been. But there was something about that planet that was homely. It was familiar, and that was the catch--

The bars,

The vagrants they housed nightly,  

The caravans they knew every corner of,

The people they would maybe even call friends--

Everything was stripped from them. Gone.

Taako and Lup prided themselves on their wayward lifestyle. They prided themselves on the detachment they kept, the simpleness of the life they held that allowed them to float along whenever they pleased. It was a risky life, and it was not lived without the scorn of the people that knew them-- it was a life full of evading responsibilities and a life of debt.

It was a life that some people deemed terrifying-- never knowing the next meal, never knowing where they would land next, never having any backup. But to them it was safe. To them there was never a dull moment, never a turn they had explored-- but there was that safety of routine, that safety of knowing the ropes and knowing how they could fly. 

Safety in being alone.

Safety in knowing what others would say and safety in becoming the unknown they had conquered-- that was the life they indulged in. 

When that planet died their reality shattered.

Lup looked outside of the window and whispered Taako’s name and the universe turned on its side.

They didn’t talk that afternoon, the two of them. Lup had steered the ship, checked their coordinates, and desperately told the ship that it was home, take them  _ home _ , this wasn’t right, this isn’t  _ home-- _

And nothing worked.

She paced on the floor. She screamed, she cried-- she threw herself to Taako’s arms and  _ cried _ for the first time in years. Lup cursed out the worlds she knew; every single one of them was damned in her mind, every single one meant more than she ever wanted to say and that was awful. It was terrible and it ripped at her heart. 

The memories clawed at her. Ate her alive and had her trashing the ship in a fiery show of power. She raked her hands across the keyboard until her nails bled, she kicked at the generators and petals until they sparked, and she pounded the buttons until the ship turned off on its own, sensing that danger, which only made her scream some more.

And Taako sat back and watched it all from the floor next to the control panel, lifeless and numb.

“We were pretending,” he’d said, quietly and without a smile. He’d watched Lup’s shoes, watched them stomp and scrape and scuff the floor. “We were always pretending.”

“We-- We were so stupid!” she’d shouted back at him. “We-- we should have-- we--”

“You don’t mean that,” he’d mumbled, his eyes finally reaching her face. “There wasn’t anythin’ we coulda done.”

“Taako, we could have stayed, we could have--”

“And for who?” He’d ran a hand through his hair, so knotted and dirty, and smiled. “Who the hell would have wanted us there?”

“Taako-- Taako we had-- there were people we knew--”

“They didn’t give two fucks about us and we didn’t give two fucks about them.”

“I--”

“See?” Taako had tucked his knees up, his smile widening bitterly. “Still pretending. We’ve always pretended we don’t care. And now shit’s fucked up and truth comes out, huh?”

“That’s-- we never pretended, Taako. Maybe-- maybe  _ you _ did,” She’d snapped and stopped pacing in front of him and he could not-- he did not have the energy to look at her. He couldn’t look at the sun.

He knew she was hurt. She was confused-- above it all, she was  _ confused _ . 

Stunned--

Lost--

They  _ both _ were.

That was what it came down to-- they were  _ lost _ , truly lost. They were truly cut off from what they claimed to be separate from. There was net, there was no backup-- there was nothing.

Who knew who had gotten out alive? 

Who knew who had escaped, or who had been gone when the planet died, like them? 

_ Did it matter? _

“I’m going to fix this,” Lup said when he didn’t respond. “I-- I’m gonna fix this all.”

“Yeah?” Taako looked at her face, the anguish written on it, and he tracked her movement as she approached the panels again. Her fingers ghosted over the switches and the knobs and under her movement they lit up, humming to life and waiting anxiously for her to make a decision.

She never pressed a single button or turned a knob-- her eyes just warily looked at them all.

“They…” 

Lup turned and Taako watched the way the light from the window hit her eyes. The light of a distant star-- one they’d never seen before, one that had always been shadowed by their planet.

“Taako, they… they just-- it can’t all just be  _ gone _ .”

The fire bled out of her. The heat, the passion, the drive-- it left her extinguished and standing, alone, in the middle of the only thing that they had left.

Lup slumped to the floor and crawled to where Taako was sat under the panels. He drew her in and rested his head on her shoulder and the two of them, so alone in the vast universe, watched the stars from the window. They watched them in the darkness of their ship-- the only light came from them, those things they had used to guide them home. The constellations that welcomed them home, the strings of stars that had lead them to that planet, now meant nothing. 

The use of them was overcome by beauty until the utility was completely snuffed and extinguished and replaced with something benign and  _ helpless. _

Taako and Lup watched this transformation for hours. 

They did not move their ship forward. They did not move it anywhere.

“What are we going to do?” Lup whispered after so long. She had that tendency-- she wanted to move on, she always wanted to stop  _ dwelling _ and she  _ hated _ standing in place. Taako had heard her brain moving as they had sat there together.

His own had been incredibly still and quiet. His brain made not a sound. It made it easier to listen to hers.

“I don’t know,” Taako answered her, staring at his feet. “Move on, I guess. We do what we’ve always done.”

“But what if… what if it-- it wasn’t just  _ ours _ . What if other planets are… are dead, too.”

“Then we’ll just move on. Keep jumping ‘til we either… find out how to stop it, I guess, or… or ‘til we find a safe one.”

Taako couldn’t think of another choice they had, after all.

“Taako, I…”

He watched her fidget and he wondered where her energy came from, for his own had died with the planet they left to dust.

“I don’t think I want to go through this again,” she mumbled, and he knew that even though all of the stars could hear them at that moment, those words were only meant for him. 

They were selfish words, after all.

“We won’t.”

Taako stared at a star, so distant--

So small, 

So fragile,

So insignificant--

And he watched it suddenly blink out of existence and he thought to himself,  _ that will never be us. _

“Just the two of us. That’s how it will be.”

Lup watched the stars and quietly nodded beside him.

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
